


The Benefits of Higher Education

by sparkycap



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Female Friendship, First Meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 19:12:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9917756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparkycap/pseuds/sparkycap
Summary: A single semester can change a girl's life in a lot of ways. In a hundred and one days, these are the most important ones.





	

**Author's Note:**

> As promised way too long ago, fem easy college au! Sorry I couldn't work in all the girls, but here is [the au post](http://theonceandfuturecaptain.tumblr.com/post/151634629734/modern-au-easy-as-college-girls) with a few more of them, and some aesthetics are [here](http://theonceandfuturecaptain.tumblr.com/tagged/mfea).

**Day One**

“There’s a case of whiskey hidden under your bed.” This is the first thing Nix says to her new roommate. She doesn’t bother moving to get a look at the girl, only opens her eyes enough to confirm that she’s got a suitcase and a room key in her hand. She yawns and adds, “Hope you don’t mind.”

It doesn’t sound like the start of a promising functional relationship, but then Nix has never been known for _functional_.

And then her roommate, a willowy redhead that Nix might mistake for a model if not for her choppy hair and plain clothes, shuts the door softly behind her and smiles. The smile is small, barely even there, and it comes after a long moment of stopping and staring, but she smiles. And she says, “But then where will I keep my bible collection?”

Nix drops her head back into the pillow with a laugh, rolling onto her back in bed. It’s the sum total of what she’d done since she arrived this morning—she’d dropped her bags to the floor, pulled out her sheets to make up one of the beds at random, and slid her whiskey under the other.

She curls on her side to watch her roommate set a bag on the empty bed. The girl shoots her a curious look and bends to check if there really is a case of whiskey under there, but she doesn’t say anything about it when she straightens. Instead she just starts pulling folded clothes out of her bag, and Nix announces, “I like you.”

“Well, that was easy,” the girl says. “No roommate horror stories for me?”

“Give me time,” Nix says. “If the whiskey isn’t enough for you.”

She almost smiles again. “No, but maybe don’t mention it to my parents. They’re on their way to help me set up.”

Nix lets her eyes drift back toward the ceiling. She’d gotten here by herself early this morning. She left her house last night at three; she hadn’t been able to sleep anyway and her bags had been packed into the car for a week. She’d have come earlier, if she could’ve, if it would have been worth her mother’s nagging. She’d have spent all of August sleeping in the car if it meant she could have told her mother to lose her number.

In the end it had all worked out. The early start meant she’d checked in when the bustle of the dorm was still quiet and slept right through the real busy rush. It seems like a successful strategy to employ now.

“Will do,” she says. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“Can I get your name first?” her roommate asks, seeming unperturbed.

Nix rolls over to face the wall. “You can call me Nix.”

“Does that come with a first name?”

“Not usually.”

She doesn’t quite sleep through her parents’ visit, but she pretends to.

When she finally gets around to opening her eyes, her roommate is on the floor. She’s stretched out in a straddle, facing away from Nix with her forehead pressed to the carpet. It’s not a bad view.

Nix watches for a moment, and then offers, “Louise.”

To her credit, she hardly startles. She rolls upward, gradually straightening her spine and stretching her neck to either side before looking back at Nix. “What’s that?”

“My name,” Nix tells her, doing some stretching herself, head back into the pillow and arching until she feels something pop. She collapses back with a content sigh. “Don’t use it.”

“Why not?” she asks, honest curiosity in her voice.

“Well, it’s a horrible name,” Nix answers. A horrible name that reminds her of her father, but that’s neither here nor there.

She stretches out over her left leg, forehead pressed to her knee. She hums thoughtfully. “Want to hear a _really_ horrible name?”

“Sure.”

“My friends call me Dick.”

Nix blinks. It has nothing to do with the fluid way _Dick_ is switching to drape her torso over her right leg, nothing at all. “…is your name Richard?”

“No, it’s Dixie. There was a typo, once, when I was twelve. A substitute teacher misread my name, and my best friend thought it was hilarious. It stuck,” she explains.

“So you’re just going with it? Even now? You don’t have to introduce yourself that way,” Nix points out.

“Harry, my friend, she followed me here,” Dixie says. “So it’s not like it wouldn’t get out anyway. And I don’t mind so much.”

The first thing Nix thinks to say is: “You mean to tell me you and your best friend are two girls named Dick and Harry?”

“More or less,” Dixie says. “Haven’t met a Tom yet, though.”

Nix can’t see her face, but she can tell she’s smiling.

Eventually Nix makes her way out of bed, rubbing her hands over her face with a yawn. She’d fallen asleep with her hair in a bun, and it’s falling out in tangles around her shoulders. She redoes it while Dixie rises gracefully to her feet, and says, “So. Gymnast, dancer, or yoga enthusiast?”

“Dancer,” Dixie says, bending over to reach for her toes.

Another nice view, but one that gives Nix the inkling that this is going to become a problem for her. How can any girl be expected to handle this kind of beauty and grace in her day-to-day life without falling apart?

Nix glances at her feet, long and gorgeously arched, and guesses, “Ballet?”

Dixie does a small pirouette, coming out of it with a nod. Nix slouches further on the edge of her bed and can’t imagine being in that much control of anything, let alone her own body.

“I’m going for a run before dinner,” Dixie tells her. “Are you interested?”

“Fascinated,” Nix says. “Be sure to tell me all about it when you get back.”

“Well, I had to ask,” Dixie says, smile hovering around her lips.

Of course, she didn’t really. And she doesn’t have to confirm dinner plans with Nix while she’s lacing up her shoes, and she doesn’t have to tell her she’ll be back in half an hour when she’s walking out the door. She doesn’t have to walk back through it almost exactly half an hour later and, upon catching sight of Nix back in bed after a strenuous twenty minutes of unpacking, huff a breath of laughter and say, “On your feet, Lou. Dinnertime.”

Nix doesn’t correct her.

It’s not so horrible a name.

…

Georgie isn’t nervous for her first day at college.

It’s rare that Georgie is nervous for anything—it comes with the territory of being who she is, talkative and unapologetic and a little magnetic. She’s not bragging; it’s almost incidental. Being the eldest of ten siblings just means she’s used to being the lead duckling in a long line of ducklings. It makes people flock to her.

And there’s the mama duck in her doorway now.

Her parents had sprung for a single, which she had mixed feelings about. On the one hand, the privacy would be a novelty. Georgie’s shared a room her entire life. Before she’d left home, her father had patted her cheek fondly and said that they probably owed her the extra couple hundred in babysitting fees anyway. But there’s a certain aloneness to getting ready for bed without her oldest younger sister doing the same thing across the room.

It’s why she left the door open, and Lip, like an angel answering her prayers—which only sounds like an exaggeration if you haven’t met Carwood Lipton—leans up against it and says, “Hey, Georgie. Settled in all right?”

“You got it, Lip.” Georgie’s met a bunch of nice girls today, and some not so nice, and some really attractive, and some almost as funny as her, but Lip has to be the best. She’s perfectly polite and handled all her RA duties without a hitch, but more than once Georgie had caught her turning away to hide an exasperated eye roll or joking lightly with an embarrassed girl about a particularly obnoxious parent. Georgie wants to pour some water on that slight impropriety and watch it grow.

Not to mention the girl has a killer smile.

“Didn’t peg you as one to go to bed this early,” Lip says.

“Had a hell of a long day,” Georgie admits. “Besides, the party was winding down.”

The party was a few icebreaker games and a stack of pizzas, and more and more girls had been trickling out when she left. It must be well and truly over if Lip is here.

“Well, good,” Lip says. “I thought I might have to kick you into bed myself.”

Georgie pulls her hair out of its side ponytail and flicks the elastic across the room at her. “You’re making all these assumptions about me, baby, I’m not sure I like it.”

“Borderline harassment,” Lip says.

“You want me,” Georgie says, dancing a little as she shimmies into her pajamas.

“Cut it out.” But she’s fond, really, Georgie can tell.

“Yeah, yeah. You checking up on all your ducklings?”

“You’re my last stop.”

“Before you fix yourself a wholesome glass of warm milk and get a full eight hours?”

“Something like that.”

Georgie laughs and shakes her head. “You’re full of shit.”

“Says the pot to the kettle,” Lip quips readily. Then Georgie ruffles her hair with her fingers a little as if she can shake out the tangles, and Lip makes a face. “I hope you’re gonna brush that mess.”

Georgie looks up and around suddenly. “Mom? Is that you?”

Lip just rolls her eyes. “Do you _have_ a hairbrush?” Georgie waves a hand in the general direction of the dresser, and Lip digs it up from under a pile of t-shirts. She guides Georgie to sit at the edge of her bed with a light touch to her arm more than any real pressure. “You mind?”

Mutely, Georgie shakes her head. Neither of them feel the need to say a word as Lip starts pulling it gently through her hair, and Georgie lets the sensation lull her closer and closer to sleep. She’s always been a sucker for getting her hair touched. Finally she yawns. “Hell, Lip, you’re better than I am at this. And I’d bet I got more practice.”

“Just comes natural, I guess,” Lip says absently. “Did you cut these layers yourself?”

“No—you know Jo Liebgott? She did it this morning for five bucks and a pack of smokes.”

“Of course she did.”

“She’s hot,” Georgie says. “Little too pretty for my tastes, but that lipstick? I could go for the tough girl thing, I’m tellin’ ya, anytime she wants my head up that short skirt of hers—”

“Georgie,” Lip interrupts, clearly holding back laughter. “Please stop talking before I gotta report you for sexual harassment or some shit.”

“Well, to save you the paperwork, I guess,” Georgie says.

“How do you even shut your mouth long enough to fall asleep?” Lip asks.

She shrugs. “I may talk _in_ my sleep.”

“Good thing you got a single,” Lip says casually, and Georgie knows exactly what she’s fishing for, but it’s not like Georgie’s going to start crying about being homesick for her sister’s loud breathing.

Still, she admits, “Yeah. Might take some getting used to.”

And Lip doesn’t give her any bullshit platitudes about how perfectly normal that is. She just hums and brushes through her hair until Georgie’s falling asleep sitting up.

 

**Day Twenty-Four**

Nix likes Amherst better than New Haven.

Connecticut isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, if it’s supposed to be anything. It’s a few rich towns and a wealth of farmland and not a lot in between. Yale was admittedly gorgeous, but Nix spent most of high school in Paris. She’s seen her share of gorgeous buildings, and while it never gets old, exactly, being surrounded by the rich and the pretentious day in and day out certainly did. Nix isn’t claiming that she can’t dole out her fair share of pretentiousness, but that’s why she needs the variety. Rich kids, if they’re not out of their fucking minds, are boring as hell. She’s not sure which category she falls into yet.

Some of Nix’s fondest memories from her two years at Yale were exploring the Ikea five minutes down the road. The place had frozen yogurt to die for, and Nix doesn’t even have much of a sweet tooth.

One of these days, she’s going to find out if Dick’s passion for ice cream extends to frozen yogurt. And if the answer is yes, she’s going to convince her to take a little road trip across the state line, to pick some up and to spend a little time driving around trying to find the bakery with the most fantastic eggplant bread that Nix went to once, forgot the name of, and never found again.

And it’ll be a good time, probably a memory Nix will cherish for the rest of her life, but it won’t be a date, because she still can’t work up the courage to figure out if her roommate even likes girls, let alone her.

Smart money says no.

That’s what makes her stalk up to the girl loitering in front of her first class, which at 11:35 is still too early, whose expression looks like Nix feels. Blank, bored, and a little pissed off. Although Nix is simply not awake enough to feel much else, whereas from what she’s heard of Ronnie Speirs, this is just her default state.

“Got any more of those?” she asks, nodding toward her cigarette.

Ronnie’s lips part in surprise, and a stream of smoke billows out. She has a pretty mouth, and under other circumstances Nix would probably be inviting her to ditch class and get off a few times in her car. As it stands, the biggest thing holding her back is the look Dixie would give her if she heard she was skipping, and how pathetic is _that_?

“You sure I’m the person you want to ask that?”

“What?” Nix realizes what she means a second before she has time to answer, and shakes her head impatiently. “Oh, those bullshit rumors? Anyone who lets that get in the way of nicotine clearly just doesn’t want it enough.”

“I think they just bring their own,” Ronnie says, amused. But she still hands Nix a cigarette and offers a light.

“Yeah, well,” Nix says around it, “I haven’t been buying as many. My roommate doesn’t like the smell.”

There’s a spark in Ronnie’s eyes like curiosity, and Nix finds herself enjoying almost getting an actual reaction from her besides irritation. “How considerate of you.”

“I aim to please,” Nix agrees. She sizes Ronnie up. “So, these rumors.”

“I thought you’d decided they’re bullshit,” Ronnie says.

“For the most part, sure. But something sparked them,” Nix says.

Ronnie stares at her blankly for a moment. Nix is sure it’s supposed to be unnerving. Then she says, “Someone told me guys don’t like girls who smoke. So I put my cigarette out on his hand.”

Nix laughs, purely delighted. “That’s probably going to leave a scar.”

She shrugs. “Nothing he didn’t deserve.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Nix says.

Slowly, Ronnie smiles at her. It’s a little awkward, that smile, something too intense in her eyes that she can’t seem to let go of, but there’s a softness there that Nix might have expected if she’d thought to consider it. It’s the kind of smile that makes Nix want to kiss her, not wholly out of attraction, but something of a desire to bite down until her mouth is sore and hot and see what happens, see if that softness gets sweeter or if she bites back. Maybe it’d be both, and wouldn’t that be interesting.

It’s similar to what she wonders about Dick—whether Nix could get her to lose some of that control, or whether she’d simply exert it in a much more satisfying way. With Ronnie she might be able to actually find out, but somehow she can’t bring herself to try. She’s still holding out for the real thing, just in case.

And really it just proves her theory. Rich kids, if they’re not boring, are out of their fucking minds.

 

**Day Thirty-Seven**

There’s a pretty girl two chairs down from Carwood with a pencil behind her ear.

The pencil is what keeps tripping Carwood up, for whatever reason. First the girl’s hair catches her eye, copper colored and soft looking as it is, and almost immediately she can’t help but catalogue the pencil sticking out of it, the eraser worn down and teeth marks gouged into the wood.

The girl looks so put together, even at eleven at night. She sits perfectly straight with her legs crossed, her books all lined up neatly in front of her, and if Carwood had to guess she’d say this girl isn’t here to cram before a test or spend all night on an essay; she’s probably just getting ahead, working on next month’s homework while she uses the quiet to contemplate whether she’ll go to the top law school in the country or the top med school in the country.

It’s ridiculous, and Carwood is sure it’s the late hour talking. But the teeth marks makes her human. It makes her more approachable, so to speak, although Carwood can still feel herself blushing at even the thought of saying hi.

It’s ridiculous, she tells herself one more time, nice and firm the way she’d tell off her little brother. And yet.

And yet she’s never been good at talking to pretty girls, first because she wouldn’t quite admit to herself why she wanted to in the first place, and then because she was sure her inexperience would show all over her face.

Somehow it was a lot easier when she’s was lying to herself. Better to give other people want they want from her than inconvenience anyone with something like her own desires.

Except not exactly that, because this girl isn’t really her type. There’s something of a thrill with the thought, that she knows herself enough to have a type now. She doesn’t want the pretty girl with her chewed up pencil, she just—well, she wants the girl to look at her with warm eyes and say, “Excuse me.”

She wants it so much she doesn’t even realize at first it’s actually happened. Then she looks around like an idiot to see if the girl’s talking to anyone else, even though their section has been deserted for hours.

“I don’t mean to bother you,” the girl says quietly. “But I was just about to leave, and I wanted to make sure you had a way home.”

It makes Carwood stare at her dumbly for a second longer. “Yeah, I can walk from here.”

She frowns. “Alone?”

Carwood nods.

The girl’s mouth tightens. “Don’t. I’ve got my roommate’s car, let me drop you.”

“Oh, that’s not—”

“I’d sleep better.”

Carwood sighs, tapping her pencil against her open notebook. “My mother always told me not to get into cars with strangers.”

She stretches across the space between them to offer a hand. “Dixie. Dixie Winters—you can call me Dick if you’d like, although it’s understandable if you wouldn’t.”

“That must be an interesting story,” Carwood says.

“I’ll tell it in the car,” Dixie offers.

Carwood relents and closes her books. “Thanks. I’m Carwood, by the way.”

Dixie cocks her head. “What kind of name is that?”

“It’s not one, far as I can tell,” Carwood says dryly. “It was my father’s middle name, or something like it anyway.”

It’s like she can actually see Dixie clocking the past tense. She doesn’t ask any more questions. Instead she starts packing her books into an old green backpack and asks, “So what has you here so late?”

Carwood feels herself flush. “Got a lit paper that’s sort of kicking my ass.”

Dixie glances over again. “Are you a first year?”

“Second,” Carwood says. “Just put it off.”

“Guess you’re not an English major then,” Dixie says.

“Engineering.” Carwood is dreaming of problem sets right about now.

For the first time, she gets a full grin out of Dixie. “Oh, yeah? Bet those classes are even more of a boys’ club than the business ones.”

“I’d bet,” Carwood agrees. They start toward the stairs together, and as they near the second floor she looks back at Dick. “You want to search the rest of this place, make sure there aren’t any strays getting left behind?” And she was mostly teasing, but Dixie hesitates. Carwood laughs. “We can, I don’t mind.”

As it turns out, everyone else in the library is practicing the buddy system. Carwood holds the door, and Dixie leads the way to her roommate’s car. “It’s just you hear all those stories, you know. What happens to women on college campuses—”

She stops and shakes her head, jaw set tight. Carwood reaches out and squeezes her wrist briefly, knowing better than to say another thank you. It’s not like she knows her too well, but she’s starting to think Dixie might share her particular brand of stubbornness.

At the car, Carwood stumbles to a halt. “Holy shit,” she says. Dixie looks back, concerned, and Carwood just manages to stop herself from running a hand reverently over the hood. “ _This_ is—Christ, _who_ is your roommate? This car is gorgeous.”

If Carwood had to describe it, she’d call the tilt of Dixie’s lips fond. “Remind me to introduce you.”

Later, Carwood realizes that it’s definitely not attraction or desire that makes her crave this girl’s attention—that’s just how everyone feels around Dixie Winters.

...

Georgie doesn’t make a habit of hanging out in dirty alleyways.

She likes the bars attached to the dirty alleyways, sure, but she’s always preferred car sex to alley sex. Still, she’s got enough drinks in her that she’d consider it just now.

Not because it’s a particularly nice alley, or because she’s in a particularly lustful mood, but because of the reason she stumbled out here in the first place. The sound of a fight piqued her curiosity, mostly because she could clearly tell it was a girl yelling.

And that _voice_ , god, that voice could get her on her knees on the wet pavement no problem.

It’s even better when she sees the girl, taller than her and tougher than her, and Georgie’s always had a bit of a type, but she might be ruined now for anything other than a leather jacket and an undercut and strong hands holding a weepy looking boy up against the brick wall.

“Well, well, well,” Georgie says, and Lip is going to yell at her later for walking herself straight into a sketchy situation she had no part in. “What do we have here?”

The girl hardly spares a glance over her shoulder. Georgie can’t tell if she’s frowning or if that’s just her face, because it doesn’t change. “You know this asshole?”

“No, I just always wanted to say that.” Georgie walks closer, trying not to stumble too much over her own feet, thankful she wore the block heels instead of the stilettos. “What’d he do?”

“You assume he did something?”

“Well, yeah. Gorgeous girl like you, I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than beat up boys who don’t deserve it.”

“You’re making me blush,” the girl deadpans.

“I’d say the same, but that might be the vodka,” Georgie says.

“Noted. Now get the fuck outta here, huh?”

Georgie pouts. She walks closer until she bumps up against the girl’s shoulder, and it earns her an irritated look.

“Making it a little hard for me to start punching, babe.”

And now Georgie can say for sure what’s making her blush. She grins. “What’s say you let him go and we get outta here?”

“Can’t do that,” the girl says. “This little shit tried to grope my friend.”

“If it’s any consolation, I think you’ve already made him wet himself,” Georgie points out.

The boy is shaking, and finally he seems to work up the nerve to speak. “I’m—I said I was sorry.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have _done_ it,” the girl says, shoving him back harder against the wall. She gently brushes Georgie away again, and then she punches him in the gut. He doubles over, and she hits him in the face once she can reach it, and he slumps to the ground.

“Wow,” Georgie says.

The girl just shakes her head, kicking at his legs without any real effort. “Fucking loser.”

“Wow,” Georgie repeats. “Who _are_ you?”

That earns her an amused smile. “You’re really drunk, aren’t you?”

“Think so. Tell me your name,” Georgie insists.

“Sure, but only because you won’t remember it in the morning,” she says. “It’s Jo.”

Georgie might swoon a little. She steadies herself with a hand against the bricks, brushes at her hair only to have it fluff back up again. “Jo. Jo, baby, that is a _beautiful_ name.”

“Well, that’s a new one,” Jo says. “You here with someone?”

“Probably,” Georgie says.

“Fucking hell,” Jo mutters. “All right, come on.”

“What?”

“Can’t just leave a drunk girl alone in an alley, can I? I’m taking you home.”

“Oh! Please do.”

“ _Your_ home, idiot.”

Georgie’s pretty sure the insult is affectionate. Jo wraps a hand around Georgie’s bicep, grip firm and still gentler than expected, the rough pads of her fingers making Georgie shiver. “Hey, I—that’s not my name.”

“Oh really? Idiot ain’t your name?” Jo jostles her a bit, pulls her along. “You don’t say.”

“It’s Georgie. Georgia, really, but that’s not a name, that’s a state. So it’s Georgie. ‘S also a country, you know, which I didn’t know, until… until soon ago, but I guess that’s what college is for.”

“Soon ago,” Jo repeats flatly. “Tell me more about the benefits of higher education.”

“You meet the _best_ girls,” Georgie says. “My RA, she’s the best. She braids hair better than my mom, and my hair’s got all these layers? It’s hard, you know, but she can do it all neat. I love her so much—my RA, not my mom. But of course I love my mom. And there are girls that take you out and get you drunk, too, that’s great. And then you meet girls in alleys who smell really nice and have, just, the best voices.”

“That’s… a lot,” Jo says. “Maybe you tell me where you live and then we have some quiet time, huh?”

“Oh, I always lose that game.”

“I’m shocked.”

A few steps later, Jo stops them at a street corner. Georgie looks around, doesn’t recognize any of it, and decides this is a really great place to sit down.

“Georgie.” The foot repeatedly nudging her thigh is covered in a really nice boot. Looks like leather. “Georgie.”

“Hello,” Georgie tells the boot.

“You all right?” Jo asks.

“That’s a nice boot,” Georgie says.

“Good,” Jo says. “Wanna tell the boot your address?”

“No,” Georgie says. “No, you said you were gonna take me home.”

“ _Your_ home,” Jo repeats.

“Don’t wanna go to my home,” Georgie says.

“Is that because you don’t know where your home is?” Jo asks.

“No, it’s ‘cause you’re pretty,” Georgie says, finally looking up at her.

Jo sighs. “Can you at least walk?”

“Probably. Don’t wanna.” Then she gasps, an exciting thought occurring. “Can you carry me?”

“Maybe, if you tell me where I’m carrying you to,” Jo says, with the exasperated tone of someone looking to compromise. Georgie gets that tone a lot.

Still, she frowns. “Shouldn’t you know your own address?”

Jo sighs.

The next morning, Georgie wakes up on a beat up couch, covered in a clearly homemade quilt. There’s a gorgeous girl in the kitchen of the unfamiliar apartment, wearing sweats and a black muscle tee, with arms that could make Georgie wet if her mouth wasn’t so dry.

“Um,” she says. “Not to be rude, but where the fuck am I?”

The girl turns around, eyebrows raised, and holds up a carton of juice and a bottle of aspirin. “Orange juice?”

“Yes, please. And your name, too, if it’s not too much trouble,” Georgie says, sitting up and scrubbing her hands over her face and back through her hair.

Jo actually smiles. “Told ya you wouldn’t remember.”

 

**Day Fifty-Nine**

Carwood does one cliché thing in college: she sees a beautiful girl across a dimly lit room and falls in love.

It’s loud, and she doesn’t want to be there. It’s a Saturday night, and she has homework. She got dragged to a party by a friend that she hasn’t seen in going on an hour. Since then she’s been standing against a wall with an untouched cup of beer someone she doesn’t know shoved into her hands. Maybe there are a couple more clichés.

The last one: the minute she sees this girl, none of the rest of it matters.

Carwood turns to the closest person she knows, Luz leaned over the back of the couch trying to pick up some redhead, and calls, “Georgie!”

“What’s up, baby?” she calls back, not taking her eyes off the guy currently at eye-level with her breasts. Small, like everything else about Georgie—everything but her hair—but amply revealed in her low-cut dress, and Carwood can’t even blame the guy.

“Get over here,” Carwood says.

Georgie meanders over, giving Carwood a crooked smile. “I was busy over there.”

“He couldn’t tell you what color your eyes were if you paid him,” Carwood tells her. “Find someone better to be busy with.”

“Of course he could,” she disagrees. “They’re the same color as my bra.”

Carwood’s eyes flick down before she can help herself. Her blush isn’t visible in the room’s low lighting, but Georgie laughs anyway. “Did you call me over here just to mama bear me?”

“No. Who is that?” Carwood asks, nodding across the room at her beautiful girl.

Georgie peers over, and her eyebrows shoot up. “Lip, that’s… may I ask your interest?”

“No,” Carwood repeats patiently.

“That’s Ronnie Speirs,” Georgie says. “No, she’s not usually at these parties. Yes, she’s queer. Yes, she’ll probably have sex with you in the bathroom if you ask.”

“I wasn’t going to ask any of those questions,” Carwood says.

“You wanted to know, though,” Georgie says.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t going to _ask_.”

Georgie reaches up to wrap her arms around Carwood’s neck, pressing a smacking kiss to the tip of her nose. “That’s what I’m here for.”

Someone else speaks up behind them, raspy voice unmistakable. “Luz, what did we say about climbing people?”

“Not to,” she tells Toye.

Carwood asks, “How drunk is she?”

Jo sighs, reaching out to fold her hands around Georgie’s waist and pull her off Carwood. “Unfortunately, only a little.”

“Well, I don’t have to feel guilty about this then,” Carwood says, pressing her full cup of beer into Luz’s hands. Jo snatches it and takes a sip, and Georgie whines until she hands it back over.

“Need a smoke?” Georgie asks, head tipped back to look up at Jo. “Lip’s leaving to pick up Speirs anyway.”

“ _What_?” To her credit, that’s the only reaction Jo has before she glances back and forth between Carwood and Ronnie and says, “Well, you better move quick. She’s about to punch someone out, might put a damper on things.”

Carwood looks over, and sure enough Ronnie is glaring up at someone half a foot taller than her. Her hands are twitching at her sides, fingers slowly beginning to curl into fists, and Carwood nods. “You’re right. Excuse me.”

As she walks away, she hears Toye say disbelievingly, “Shit, I was kidding. I didn’t think she was actually gonna take that as her cue.”

Ronnie looks softer up close. From far away she’s all sharp angles, the points of her shoulders and the line of her jaw and the aggressive tilt of her chin. Close enough to touch, she’s invitingly soft in places—the full curve of her lips, the short curl of her hair, the light padding at her hips.

Not her eyes.

Her eyes are hard and angry. Carwood doesn’t think she’s seen her blink once yet. Ronnie adjusts her stance minutely, right foot inching back, starting to lift onto the balls of her feet, and the boy still smirking arrogantly at her—the boy, Carwood sees now that she’s close enough, who has spilled a drink all over her shirt and is now _laughing_ about it—doesn’t even notice.

Carwood does.

“Hey,” she says, putting a gentle hand on the arm about to wind back for a punch. Ronnie stills.

She turns around, eyes now flat instead of sparking, expression bored instead of angry. Sixty to zero in a single second. Then she registers Carwood in front of her, and she blinks.

Carwood finds herself speechless for a moment, thrown by the weight of all that intensity focused on her. Ronnie doesn’t seem to mind, just watches her right back. Finally, she pulls herself together and says, “I’ve got an extra shirt. Getting arrested for assault sounds fun and all, but why don’t you come clean up?”

Ronnie gestures for Carwood to lead the way, lips quirking to one side in what might be a smile.

The bathroom door shuts behind them before they turn the light on. Carwood spends a moment listening to Ronnie breathe in the dark before she thinks to start feeling up the wall. Her hand hits Ronnie’s on the light switch. She steps back.

Ronnie hefts herself onto the edge of the sink, swinging her legs and watching Carwood’s hands fumble at the buttons of her flannel. The first hint of surprise all night appears on Ronnie’s face. She says, “When you said you had a shirt I didn’t think you meant the one off your back.”

Then she bites her bottom lip, scraping her teeth back and forth, and falls quiet again. Carwood would never guess from the tone of her voice, but it’s almost like she hadn’t meant to say that.

“It’s fine, I’m wearing a t-shirt,” Carwood says. Then she closes her eyes, because her flannel is almost entirely off now and obviously Ronnie can see the gray tee underneath. She can also, thanks to the bathroom’s decent lighting, see Carwood blush.

Slowly, Ronnie starts to smile. A real smile, one that softens the angles of her cheekbones and lightens all the way through to her eyes.

Carwood was wrong about her eyes.

There’s something soft there as well, dark and warm and shot through with green. It’s enough to keep Carwood’s gaze for a long moment, even though Ronnie has unbuttoned her wet tank top and slipped it off. She plants her hands behind her on the counter, and the shirt hangs forgotten on her wrists.

A second later, Carwood forgets about it too.

Ronnie has sharp hipbones, the jut of them when they’re pushed forward like they are now enough to make Carwood’s fingers twitch with the desire to curl around them. Carwood wants badly to kiss over the stretch of her stomach, palm over her ribcage, lick over—

She’s wearing a bra, but barely. If it can be called that. It’s lacy and flimsy and damn near transparent, even with splotches of beer darkening the fabric. Carwood has never had so much as a sip of alcohol, but for the first time in her life she wants to know what it tastes like.

After a moment, she manages to tear her eyes abruptly away. She holds out her shirt. “Sorry.”

“If you say so,” Ronnie says, slim hands closing around the fabric. The crimson plaid looks dark against her pale skin, and Carwood focuses her eyes on that instead. Ronnie starts buttoning at the bottom, and Carwood can tell by her sly smile that she does it on purpose. When she’s halfway up, she says, “Let me take you out.”

“On a date?” Carwood asks dumbly.

Ronnie doesn’t laugh. She shrugs, dropping her hands from the buttons a fair few earlier than Carwood would have stopped, and hops off the counter. Carwood’s shirt hangs off her in the loveliest way. She steps into Carwood, reaching out to smooth her fingers over the hem of her t-shirt. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” Carwood says, the word slipping out without conscious thought. “Yes. Yeah, what’d you have in mind?”

“What are you doing right now?” Ronnie asks.

“Whatever you are.”

“Good answer.”

Ronnie slides her fingers along the inside of Carwood’s wrist, pulling her forward with no real pressure in her touch. She curls their hands together in a move that would seem thoughtless if Ronnie seemed the type to do anything that way. Instead it’s simply casual, as if this is somehow the most natural thing in the world. Ronnie doesn’t look back, but Carwood can see the edge of her smile, sweeter than expected.

A beautiful girl leads her out of a stranger’s bathroom to god knows where, and Carwood follows.

 

**Day Eighty-Three**

About a month after Lip heartlessly _abandons_ her, Georgie realizes a peculiar thing.

She has a live in girlfriend.

It’s not strictly true, of course. If she said that to Jo’s face, there’s a good chance she might get punched, or at least kicked out of the apartment that she is now more familiar with than her own dorm building. Georgie is not a girl with strict boundaries, but even for her this relationship is blurring some confusing lines.

Currently, she’s waking up on Jo’s couch for the fourth time in six days. And the only reason it wasn’t six out of six is because one night she was hooking up with a gorgeous blonde in her dorm, and one night she’d simply shared Jo’s bed since her roommate’s friend had needed the couch.

It’s not the most comfortable couch in the world. Not the worst, either, but the cushions are thin and the fabric, while not exactly scratchy, is far from soft. Jo bitches at her to put a sheet down and stop drooling on their throw pillows. Most nights Georgie can’t be fucked to do anything more than pull Nonna Guarnere’s old quilt down from the back of the couch and pass out.

The truth of the matter is that any and all discomfort is worth it a thousand times over to see Jo the way she looks in the morning. Always in a tank top, sometimes the clingy sort that shows a lot of skin, usually the thinner muscle tees that ride up her stomach when she stretches and show off her breasts in the most spectacular way. Jo has the best arms, and Georgie will never get tired of waking up to her making scrambled eggs and bacon in boxer shorts and sleeveless shirts.

This morning, Jo wakes her up by tugging at her hair and setting a glass of water on the coffee table with a loud thunk. Georgie swats at her with a whine. “Too early.”

“You got class,” Jo says. “And I got a heavy bag with my name on it at the gym.”

“No class,” Georgie mumbles into the couch cushion. “It’s Saturday.”

Jo laughs and pats her head as she walks away. “It’s Tuesday, babe.”

Georgie groans.

Eventually she rolls herself off the couch, dragging the blanket with her and wrapping it around her shoulders like a cape. She considers taking the glass of water along, but hisses at the cold and leaves it behind to find a cup of something warm instead. Jo presses coffee into her hands when she walks into the kitchen, and she sighs happily. “You make shit coffee, you know that?”

“I do, as a matter of fact,” Jo says, sounding very proud of it.

“Goes well with your burnt bacon and runny eggs.”

“Don’t forget the dry toast.”

“How could I ever.”

Georgie lets go of her blanket to cradle her coffee in both hands, and then she crowds in close and tucks her head under Jo’s chin. Jo doesn’t complain, just makes an irritated sound and roughly smooths Georgie’s bedhead down. The blanket slips, and Jo catches the end to pull it tighter around her shoulders. “Why aren’t you wearing pants?”

“Because I have a nice ass,” Georgie says. “And these are cute underwear.” They’re edged with red lace and patterned with hearts and lipstick kisses, and when Georgie shimmies her hips to show them off Jo slides a hand down to her lower back to still her, leaving it to rest dangerously close to her ass. Georgie grins against her shoulder. “No, I’m kidding. I came here in jeans, I didn’t have anything to sleep in.”

“Could’ve borrowed something,” Jo says.

“You were already asleep,” she says.

Jo slaps lightly at her hip. “Then why didn’t you just go home?”

She shrugs. “I wouldn’t be a very good girlfriend if I’d done that.”

Jo gives her an odd look. “You’re not my girlfriend.”

“Aren’t I though?”

“If you are, I gotta say, I have not been faithful.”

“No, me neither, but you gotta admit, we’re a little married,” Georgie says.

“Oh, so now you’re my _wife_ ,” Jo says.

Georgie presses a kiss to her collarbone. “Marry me, huh?”

There’s a long pause. And then Jo kisses her forehead and says, “Yeah. Yeah, alright.”

She draws back in shock. “Seriously?”

“No, not seriously,” Jo says. “But maybe it’s about time we stop seeing other people.”

“Jo Toye, are you admitting we’re seeing each other?” Georgie asks, grinning widely.

It earns her an eye roll and a flick to the middle of her forehead. “You’re my fucking girl, Luz.”

Georgie laughs, pure happiness, and leans up to kiss her. She gets so close, and then Jo plants a hand on her face and pushes her away. “Hey,” she whines.

“Get back to me when you brush your teeth,” Jo says.

Georgie shoves her coffee into Jo’s hands and drops her blanket. “I’m using your toothbrush.”

“The fuck you are,” Jo says.

“Totally am.” Georgie pulls herself away and dances out of Jo’s reach, although she knows Jo must not really be trying to grab her or she’d be pinned. Instead Jo falls back with a small shake of her head and turns to prod at the bacon.

She doesn’t use Jo’s toothbrush. There’s no need; she’s had a spare here since October. And it doesn’t matter much either way, because when she stretches up to kiss Jo until the bacon burns on the stove behind them, they both taste like coffee and spearmint.

 

**Day One Hundred and One**

On Saturday mornings, Dixie has a routine.

She wakes up at what Nix would call an unreasonable hour, polishes off a power bar while she studies, and then changes into running clothes. Some days she waits for Carwood to show up with Ronnie in tow. Some days, like today, she prods Nix out of bed and walks her, half asleep and still grumbling, to Carwood’s dorm.

And then she dumps Nix into bed where Ronnie is usually still fast asleep, and it never fails to give Dixie a fond little thrill to see big bad Ronnie Speirs, with her hair all mussed and her lips parted softly, hugging her girlfriend’s pillow. By the time she and Carwood get back from their run, the two of them are inevitably curled together like kittens.

Except this morning when they get back, neither of them are sleeping.

Ronnie is wearing nothing but a pair of lacy underwear and a flannel shirt that almost certainly doesn’t belong to her, judging by the way Carwood stumbles to a stop, and straddling Nix’s hips to pin her to the bed by the wrists. For a moment Dixie thinks that no girl actually sleeps like that outside of movies and television and men’s fantasies, and then realizes that if anyone does, it’s Ronnie. And then she simply does her best to feel more fond than jealous, and doesn’t quite succeed.

There’s nothing going on between them, that much is obvious. Someone would have to be blind not to notice that Ronnie hasn’t had eyes for anyone other than Carwood since they met, and even Dixie isn’t that oblivious. But if anyone’s going to be wrestling around with Lou in bed, she’d still rather it be her, mostly innocent or not.

“Is this your way of asking for a threesome?” Carwood asks.

“Oh, good,” Nix says. “Lip, can you get this off me?”

“What’s going on?” Dixie asks slowly, stepping further into the room and out of Carwood’s way.

Carwood promptly strides over to the bed and pulls Ronnie away. “Come on, slugger.”

“Wait, she—”

“I did _nothing_.”

Carwood ignores both of them, rolling her eyes when Ronnie resists and sweeping her up bridal style. That’s about the time Ronnie chooses instead to relax into her girlfriend’s arms and grin at her, shirt slipping far enough off one shoulder that the only polite thing for Dick to do is look away.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Carwood tells her. She kicks at the bedframe until Nix moves. “Time to get up.”

Nix scoots to the end of the bed, leaning against the wall and running a hand over her hair, which does nothing to fix the state it’s in, messy and tangled and almost completely fallen out of the quick bun she’d done up to keep it out of her face on the walk. Carwood makes a disapproving noise, and Dixie knows she must be itching to fix it.

This is Dixie’s Saturday routine because usually after a run, the four of them grab a late breakfast. More than once Carwood has shaken her head and paused halfway through eating to lean over and pull Lou’s hair back into a nice neat braid. Lou always complained that between the hairstyle and the early hour she felt like she was about eight years old and getting dragged to church again.

This morning Carwood spares her, simply sits down on the edge of the bed and holds Ronnie in her lap so she doesn’t try anything, but she still says, “Dick, would you get that for me?”

Dixie laughs. “Sure, Lip.”

She sits beside Nix and starts working her thick hair free of the elastic, gently so she doesn’t have any reason to protest. Nix sighs and relaxes into it. “No braids.”

“Got it.” She takes a few moments to comb through it with her fingers under the guise of working out knots, enjoying the softness, and then ties it into a low ponytail.

When she looks up, Carwood is tapping her fingers against Ronnie’s hip and trying not to smile as she refuses to let herself be kissed. “Tell me why you were trying to suffocate Nix.”

Ronnie looks at her, seeming a little touched. “You got that?”

Carwood finally gives her a quick kiss. “You were reaching for the pillow.”

“Ladies,” Dixie says dryly. “As much as I appreciate the desire to suffocate Lou—”

“Dick,” Nix gasps, twisting to look at her with betrayed eyes.

“—I’d rather not have to find a new roommate,” she finishes.

“Fair enough,” Ronnie says. “Although I wasn’t actually trying to kill her, I was trying to get her up. But she fought me, and, well, things… devolved.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Nix mutters.

“You’re a stubborn slacker,” Ronnie says.

“And you’re a psycho slut,” Nix says, shrugging.

Dixie tugs on her ponytail sharply. “Hey. Too far, maybe?”

“Well, she’s got a point,” Ronnie says.

Carwood laughs. “Alright, look, she’s only a slut for me now. Don’t you two have a big test to study for?”

“Why?” Ronnie twists in Carwood’s lap, eyes widening. “Does that mean—”

Carwood hushes her. “We got company, sweetheart, be patient.”

Ronnie is biting her lip to hide a satisfied smile when she turns back to them. Dixie chooses to ignore this. “Yeah, we do. I’d apologize again for skipping out on breakfast, but that doesn’t seem necessary.”

“It’s our pleasure,” Ronnie says sincerely.

Nix sighs as she stands and stretches. “How about you study out loud while I nap, and we just hope I unconsciously soak some of it up?”

“We’ll stop for coffee,” Dixie promises.

“Also, I don’t think you can call it napping this early in the morning,” Carwood says thoughtfully.

“Shouldn’t you be busy doing something else with that mouth?” Nix shoots back.

Ronnie cuts in, “Well, actually—”

“No,” Dixie says.

Ronnie subsides. “Yes, ma’am.”

Eventually they do make their way to the door, and Carwood calls, “Lock it behind you, please!”

Nix laughs.

And as soon as they’re down the hall, she says, “You know, I think I liked her better when she was a miserable bitch.”

“No, you didn’t,” Dixie says.

“No, I didn’t,” she agrees. “But no one should be that happy this early in the morning.”

Dixie kisses her.

It’s not something she planned to do, and she’s still not sure about it, but it’s like for a split second she’s lost most of her impulse control. As little as she likes to admit it, that’s not an uncommon thing when Lou’s around. So she pulls her to a stop in the middle of the hallway and kisses her.

And then she says, “ _You_ should be that happy this early in the morning.”

She’s not sure it comes across, but what she means is that Nix should always be that happy.

Nix blinks at her. “Am I dreaming?”

“Have you had this dream before?” Dixie asks.

“Many times,” Nix says.

Dixie gives her a frustrated look. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I’ve been flirting with you all semester!” Nix exclaims. “Why didn’t you?”

“I thought you did that with everyone.”

“It’s different. And it doesn’t mean you want me back.”

And really, she supposes it is. Nix raises an eyebrow and nudges their shoulders together, nonverbally repeating her question, and Dixie shrugs. “I let you hide your whiskey under my bed.”


End file.
